84 The Book of the Hokse. 



operations some idea of an institution which occupies so prominent a part in public life of many 

 eminent men, and particularly of our legislators in both Houses of Parliament. With that 

 view I gave extracts from novels by authors familiar with the pleasures and the rogueries of racing. 



In this edition I have cancelled fiction to substitute fact, and availed myself of the 

 "Confessions," as frank as Rousseau's, contained in the journal of Mr. Charles Greville, who raced, 

 and betted, and lived in intimate connection with the most aristocratic supporters of racing, for 

 more than forty years. 



Mr. Charles Cavendish Fulke Greville, whom I propose to treat as a typical representative 

 of the turf in its best form, was " no vulgar boy," no needy adventurer, no ruined spendthrift 

 soured by a series of disastrous racing speculations ; on the contrary, it is believed that the result 

 of his racing transactions rather added to the very sufficient income which he enjoyed from his 

 earliest years, as Secretary of Jamaica (a sine;ure) and Clerk of the Privy Council. 



On his father's side he was descended from a cadet of the noble family of Warwick. His 

 mother was a sister of the third Duke of Portland ; he was, therefore, a first cousin of Lords 

 George and Henry Bentinck, names famous in the annals of sport. 



His official position brought him in contact with the more distinguished men of both parties 

 in the State. He enjoyed the intimacy of the Duke of Wellington and Earl Grey. He was 

 private secretary, before he was twenty, to Earl Bathurst, and he occupied for the last twenty years 

 of his life a suite of rooms in Bruton Street, in the house of Earl Granville 



Mr. Greville was a very accomplished man. He was familiar with English literature ; he 

 spoke and read French and Italian; had a cultivated taste in art, as his Italian diary shows; was 

 a welcome guest at Holland House, and warmly appreciated the conversation of Mackintosh 

 Macaulay, Sydney Smith, and the galaxy of talent of every kind which was gathered together in 

 the early part of this century by Lord and Lady Holland. He never seemed so satisfied with 

 himself as when listening to highly intellectual conversation, or riding on horseback amongst 

 sylvan scenes. Yet he was not like Lord Palmerston, who made breeding and racing two or 

 three race-horses one of his relaxations from his great political labours ; nor Lord Stanley, who 

 enjoyed a race-meeting like a boy, yet never allowed gambling to debauch his wondrous mental 

 powers. Charles Greville made racing-gambling the business of his life. When he died, the 

 racing literary touts, of whom he had been at once the idol and the oracle, found with disgust 

 that he hated and despised the craft and mysteries which he had practised for forty years. 



Mr. Charles Greville was born with a taste and talent for the turf which he must have 

 cultivated early, for in his twenty-sixth year he was selected to manage and re-form the racing 

 estabUshment of the Duke of York. He began by weeding it of a useless lot of animals, and 

 managed in his second year to win the Derby for the Duke, with Moses. The success of the Duke's 

 stable did Mr. Greville credit up to the time it was brought to an end by a sale of the whole stud. 



Mr. Greville for some short time assisted his uncle, the Duke of Portland, in his racing-stable, 

 and afterwards became confederate with the young Earl of Chesterfield ; then with his cousin, 

 Lord George Bentinck, who, from his father's opposition, could not run his horses in his own 

 name. As a matter of course the cousins quarrelled. 



In 1834 Mr. Greville owned a good mare. Preserve, and with her won the Clearwell and 

 Criterion, and in the following year won the One Thousand Guineas. In 1837 he won the St. Leger 

 with Mango. Almost up to the last he had a few horses in training, and was a noted figure, 

 "open-mouthed" on his pony at the Newmarket Meetings. 



The following extracts from his diary speak the true voice of a man "who, to gamble, 

 gave up what was meant for mankind." 



